Live Reading of W.E.B. Du Bois’ Sci-Fi Story “The Comet” – February 28th in Brooklyn

Independent media organization Bondfire Radio is celebrating Black History Month, and their fourth anniversary, with a special live event and reading of the science fiction short story “The Comet” by civil rights activist, historian, NAACP co-founder, and author  W.E.B. Du Bois.

Written by Du Bois in 1920, “The Comet” is  set in a vaguely futuristic, yet oddly contemporary world, in which a passing comet casts a shadow of death over Manhattan. Only two people survive: Jim, a black man whose world has been one of poverty and hard work, and Julia, a white woman who knows only leisure and privilege. If humanity is to have a future, the two must build a new world from the wreckage of the old.  The story was originally published as the tenth chapter of Du Bois’s book Darkwater: Voices from within the Veil, which according to WEBDubios.org, the author, “explicitly addressed significant issues, such as the oppression of women and Eurocentric standards of beauty, the historical rise of the idea of whiteness, and the abridgement of democracy along race, class, and gender lines.

The reading is directed and sound designed by Keisha “Tasty Keish” Dutes and live engineered by Conscious, the founders of Bondfire Radio – an interactive radio station combating the zombification of listeners by providing diverse programming for real people by real people.

The night also features a special preview of the one-woman show Air Tubman by Lacresha Denise Berry, the story of Harriet Tubman re-imagined as a young woman growing up in Harlem through a theatrical lens.

RSVP for the event on Eventbrite.  If you cannot make it to the live show, you can listen live via bondfireradio.com , but obviously this is better experienced in person.